Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
In the celebrated case of Alan Murray vs. Jeanie McDonald at
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1898, Justice Grahame pronounced from the
judicial seat one of the most scathing arraignments of the marriage
bureau ever delivered. "Leeches upon the body social, blood-suckers,
destroyers of womanhood, abominations of the bottomless pit," were
some of the phrases used by Justice Grahame in denouncing Murray.
In the petty sessions at Tinahely, Ireland, Justice O'Gorman in
May, 1905, is reported in the Wicklow People, a newspaper which has
a wide circulation in the South of Ireland, as fiercely denouncing
the marriage broker business. The Justice declared that the marriage
broker was a wolf, "preying upon the weaknesses of humanity, a
pander to the lowest instincts"; that he had no right to demand the
interference of the law in his behalf, but rather that the law should
always be exercised for the suppression of his nefarious traffic.
SAME THING NEARER HOME.
To get nearer home. In the Chicago American, February 12, 1903, Judge
Neely, in the case of the State vs. Hattie Howard, declared from the
bench that to "sell men and women in marriage is the height of crime."
Judge Neely further said:
"Men and women who engage in this business of promoting
matrimony for money are guilty of crime. It is opposed to
the fundamental principles of society. Such a practice
should under no circumstances be tolerated. This practice
should be stopped. The trade should be killed. The courts
should make it their business to discourage this thing in a
way that may be easily understood."
Judge Kohlsaat, of Chicago, has inveighed against the practice in
equally vehement terms. Judge Kohlsaat declares that "the Police
Department of Chicago is entitled to great credit for what it has done
in discouraging this business. I hope it will continue its vigilance
until every promoter of marriages of this character has been compelled
to leave the city. They should make such criminals give the city a
wide berth."
There, then, is the law. The business is a crime in its very nature.
It leads to bigamy and wholesale murder. It is made the instrument of
the thief, the swindler and the murderer. How much longer will the
American people look with calmness upon these practices, upon these
abominations, which make a stench of the very air of the great and
free country in which we live? The answer is up to you.
THE GREAT MISTAKE.
OUR PENAL SYSTEM IS A RELIC OF EARLY SAVAGERY.
Our whole penal system needs changing. It is a relic of barbarism, and
stands a monument to the early savagery of the human race.
How is it possible for a man or woman to lead an upright, useful life
after they once come under the ban of the law? Society combines to
hound them down. They are forbidden to place themselves on an equality
with others by narrow, human prejudice--the "holier than thou"
attitude of that portion of the public which has not yet been "found
guilty."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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